Approximately 100 million Americans have a chronic condition such as heart disease, cancer, AIDS or diabetes. Of these, approximately 8 million receive at least one home care visit per year while approximately 3 million require 50 home care visits per year. Additionally, many people, particularly, the elderly, medically-at-risk and physically challenged, subscribe to personal emergency response services (“emergency response”) to ensure quick and easy access to emergency help whenever needed. Currently, the cost of home healthcare and emergency response services is about 43 billion dollars. As the baby boomer generation continues to age, the number of people in need of home healthcare and/or emergency response services is expected to grow. For example, recent projections have estimated that the home healthcare and emergency response market will grow to over 64 billion dollars by 2006.
The extent to which remote healthcare delivery systems have been implemented varies widely depending upon the particular type of remote healthcare delivery system involved. Some remote healthcare delivery systems, for example, remote caregiving systems, have rarely, if ever, been implemented. Other remote healthcare delivery systems, for example, telemedicine, have been widely implemented. Telemedicine is the use of electronic communication and information technologies to provide healthcare when distance separates the medical professional from the patient. A related type of remote healthcare delivery system is commonly known as “telehealth.” Telehealth is the electronic provision of health care and information services for the direct benefit of individual patients and their families. It includes both actual physician-patient interactions via telemedicine, as well as education and information services designed to increase awareness of (and where applicable, compliance with) diagnoses and medical conditions, treatments, and good health practices. While the two terms are often used interchangeably, the underlying concept of telemedicine has traditionally described the use of technology to provide clinical medical services when the healthcare provider and patient are separated by geographic distance. Telehealth, on the other hand, should be viewed as an expansion on telemedicine. More specifically, telehealth not only includes clinical services but also non-clinical medical services such as education, research, and administrative functions.
It should be readily appreciated that the wellness and peace of mind of many individuals and their families would benefit greatly from a home health system that provides various ones of the emergency response, life safety, telemedicine, telehealth and remote caregiving services in a single, integrated, home health system. It should be further appreciated that it would be highly desirable if various combinations of the aforementioned services were made available through a single interface device. It is, therefore, the object of this invention to provide an integrated home health system interface device capable of achieving various ones of the aforementioned benefits